Here are a few applications which you can use to locate information on the Internet. Choose an application (or add a new one) and discuss any or all of these questions:
What are some things I can do with this application?
Does the software do what it is intended to do?
What do you like about it?
What do you dislike about it?
How could this software be used in class?
SEARCHING TOOL
DESCRIPTION
PROS
CONS
USES
A tool for collecting and organizing ideas.
Very visual
Doesn't show any of the information from the websites.
This application is very useful for humanities. This is easy to use too. You just choose a topic and it gives you a a list of different headlines that are from different websites. It's not just UK news, it's world news. You can access this at home.
With this application, you can browse through hundreds of different high-quality photos organized in categories. After selecting the category you want, it takes you to a page of thumbnails in the selected category. If you click on the image you want, it will take you to a new page again, this time with the picture at a large size. At the top left hand corner is the option of returning to the thumbnail page, an information button (not working), and a slide show button, which shows you all of the photos from your selected theme in succession. If you click on the selected photo it will come up on a large screen that you can drag on to your desktop. The best part is that these picture come without a watermark/tag, and are totally free! This software could be used for anything that needs pictures - Powerpoints, essays, clip movies, etc.
This is a cool way to search because instead of giving you a list, it gives you a cube of images that represent websites or things on a website. While it is a good search engine, it can be a bit confusing in that it is a cube. However, this aspect makes it very cool. I think it will do well when you search images instead of words.
This is a cool search engine because it shows current news articles so if you are tired of google turning up everything this only turns up recent things.
This is probably the best place for information on the entire web. This is because it has a general overview on the first page and more detailed info on the next pages. it has the information of Wikipedia with info that is totally true.
This is a great website. It compiles news videos from many different websites. It is a cool way to find out info. I think someone might be using this site for the next daily geo.
This is a very cool database where you can retrieve data that is 100% true. On this website you do not need to hesitate whether the data is relevant or not. All of the information on this website is true. This application is very handy when you have to research for an essay or a research report. I really like the fact that it sometimes gives you the MLA citation already completed, this means that you do not need to go back and find all of the data for the citation. There is one downside to this website, it's very childish. There are too many colours and it does not look professional. In my opinion the pages should look more like the ones on Britannica, those look much more professional. The software definitely does what it is intended to do, (allow people to research) but I think that that it should rather be used by the fifth graders and downwards. I think that we should look up information on one of the more professional sites like Britannica.
SIRS Knowledge Source (Library database- school only.)
Safari
Safari is the default browser for all Mac's and can also be downloaded for PC's. Overall Safari is a fast browser. You can easily bookmark webpages either to the Bookmark's Bar or into separate folders. You can also add folders to your Bookmark's Bar however to then transfer bookmarked pages into there is pretty hard and can be confusing, as it is to remove websites from the folder. One of Safari's neat features it the Top Sites page which is like another place to bookmark you favorite websites. It even shows you a small rectangle with the websites main page. Should you want to delete a website all you have to do is click edit and delete the website, you can also chose between small, medium or large icons for displaying your favorite websites. If you chose small you can visualize 24 pages, medium allows you to visualize 12 pages and large allows you to visualize 6 pages. If you don't manually add any websites then Safari will automatically add some of its default webpages (Ebay, News pages etc.) or show your most visited sites.
Safari is a website that allows yo to search websites and many other things. This software is intended to allow you to search basically anything you want. Safari is most often used on macs but can be downloaded on PCs as well. Safari is an apple product and advertises apple products when you open it. I like how fast Safari can be when you open it up I also like that it advertises different apple products such as new iTunes songs movies and more. I dislike that it can be very slow when you have too many people using it at once. This software could be used for just about anything in class.
Camino
Firefox
Firefox is a web browser that works on PC's and Mac's. It doesn't often lag and it is very customizable. You can change the theme to something that reflects you. Sites are easy to bookmark and and Firefox is easy to navigate. Like most browsers, you can download it for free.
Firefox also allows for you to add all these cool add-ons and plug-ins. For example you can add a plug-in that will allow you to download videos of YouTube, MySpace and many other websites. You can also add plug-ins that will strengthen your security and remember your passwords. Another good thing about Firefox is that it is very good for streaming online videos, for example if you want to live stream a football match Firefox is great because it supports those websites. Lastly Firefox is a pretty fast browser and it doesn't lag or crash that often.
There are many things that you can do with google and since it is a search engine it has almost any site in the world on it. It is the worlds most used search engine because it has many different ways of narrowing down on what you want like if you want to buy something it has a place where you can press shopping and it has ones for images and websites. one of my favourite things about this search engine is when you start to type something in it will give you underneath similar searches that people did before.This search engine does what it is intended to do like it will give you many different types of websites to follow and many different web sources as well. This can be easily be used in class because if your looking for something about a report of cells or a sample of poetry it is very easy to just go on google and get many different sources and many different answers. the one thing that I dislike about this it that it shows the website that has the most people visited to be shown first what I think is better is to show which website has the best ratings and show that first.
Google is search engine that you can do many things with. This is the world's most used used search engine. You don't even need to calculate it, almost everybody uses it. People use it because every website shows up there and there are so many things you can do with Google. With Google you can use it for maps, videos, translator, shopping, images,news, Gmail, blogs, updates, scholar, books and finance. A lot I would say. The software does what it is intended to because it has many helping bits of google. I like that all of the websites show up on these pages and that there are so many things to choose from that you can use to help you. I do not like that you can put whatever you want on google images and web and everything else. This software can be used in class to do everything, to search examples of what you are researching in Google images or you can search what ever you need on the web. You can translate anything on Google translate, but the negative is that the translator is not reliable because they do not have reliable translations.
Oh, good ole' google.
What are some things you can do with this "application"? Well, it does virtually everything; the famous google search, images, maps, translators and it really guides you to whatever your searching for (which is it's main purpose). This software is used in almost ALL classes (that I know of) for doing research.
Say you have an essay to write about Hemochromatosis but you don't know what it is. You can easily research it on Google.
Shiira is a japanese web browser for the mac os x, it is a really cool browser because say you have a bunch of bookmarks on safari or fire fox, shiira adds all the bookmarks instantly on it that were on both fire fox and safari it keeps them in a shelf, (that function is called shelf) it has a lot more to it to. (A lot of shiira's functions are just for fun, but quite a bit is useful.)
Like any good Web Browser, Opera can access web pages, remember user names and passwords, add favourites, and also has a 'Speed Dial' page which is opened when a new tab is opened. Speed dial is pretty much a list of your favourite websites that you can customize. I like fact that Opera can be very extensively customized, from homepages to appearance, it can be easily customized to suit you. You can even create your own window skins or download ones made by others! Also, the standard Opera skin has a very sleek feel to it in my opinion. Also, another cool thing is that if you close the window, and then open it again, it will still have all of the same pages and tabs open (which is more than I can say for some other web browsers). This software could be easily used in class in place of any other web browser (such as Safari).
It runs websites and applications on the internet
Safari is a website that allows yo to search websites and many other things. This software is intended to allow you to search basically anything you want. Safari is most often used on macs but can be downloaded on PCs as well. Safari is an apple product and advertises apple products when you open it. I like how fast Safari can be when you open it up I also like that it advertises different apple products such as new iTunes songs movies and more. I dislike that it can be very slow when you have too many people using it at once. This software could be used for just about anything in class.
Firefox also allows for you to add all these cool add-ons and plug-ins. For example you can add a plug-in that will allow you to download videos of YouTube, MySpace and many other websites. You can also add plug-ins that will strengthen your security and remember your passwords. Another good thing about Firefox is that it is very good for streaming online videos, for example if you want to live stream a football match Firefox is great because it supports those websites. Lastly Firefox is a pretty fast browser and it doesn't lag or crash that often.
Google is search engine that you can do many things with. This is the world's most used used search engine. You don't even need to calculate it, almost everybody uses it. People use it because every website shows up there and there are so many things you can do with Google. With Google you can use it for maps, videos, translator, shopping, images,news, Gmail, blogs, updates, scholar, books and finance. A lot I would say. The software does what it is intended to because it has many helping bits of google. I like that all of the websites show up on these pages and that there are so many things to choose from that you can use to help you. I do not like that you can put whatever you want on google images and web and everything else. This software can be used in class to do everything, to search examples of what you are researching in Google images or you can search what ever you need on the web. You can translate anything on Google translate, but the negative is that the translator is not reliable because they do not have reliable translations.
Oh, good ole' google.
What are some things you can do with this "application"? Well, it does virtually everything; the famous google search, images, maps, translators and it really guides you to whatever your searching for (which is it's main purpose). This software is used in almost ALL classes (that I know of) for doing research.
Say you have an essay to write about Hemochromatosis but you don't know what it is. You can easily research it on Google.